DEAKIN UNIVERSITY MAKING ITS MARK IN WATER CONSERVATION

Solution: water refill stations and drinking fountains across three Deakin campuses.

Result: a sustainable initiative in the effort to achieve best practice water conservation.

Working towards its goal of being a ’Green Star – Education v1’ enterprise that integrates environmental sustainability principles into all of its operations, policies and activities, Deakin University has installed aquafil™ water refill stations and drinking fountains in key locations across three campuses.

This is one of several environmentally sustainable initiatives implemented by Deakin in an effort to achieve best practice water conservation, stormwater management and waste management practices, following detailed water audits that were undertaken at each campus.

Detailed research around accessibility was carried out to determine which water units would be best suited to the University’s needs.

aquafil™ offers a wide range of water refill stations and drinking fountains to choose from. As well as being wheelchair accessible, the units have a range of optional features, such as water meters to track usage, filtered or non-filtered options, dog bowls and display panels for advertising.

The initiative, coupled with the ’Be Smart Choose Tap‘ awareness campaign, has helped encourage staff and students to refill their own drink bottles instead of purchasing water in plastic bottles, aligning with the University’s objective to reduce waste to landfill.

Melbourne is reputed for having some of the best drinking water in the world, but each year Australians still spend more than $500 million on purchasing bottled water. This means Australians are paying 700 times more per 500ml of bottled water than they would for tap water.

Not only are millions of dollars wasted annually on bottled water, the plastic waste that ends up in landfill, waterways and oceans has a severe impact on our environment. Plastic bottles, which take an average estimated time of 450 years to break down, kill our bird and marine life when they mistake them for food.

The installation of aquafil™ water refill stations and drinking fountains addresses a key feature in Deakin’s Strategic Plan LIVE the future: Agenda 2020, which provides the opportunity to extend the definition and practice of ‘sustainability’ to include economic, social and environmental concepts.

About Arrow Alpha

Established in 1990, after recognising the importance of sustainable forms of transport, Arrow Alpha began by designing and manufacturing high quality, cost efficient, long lasting public transport information products and systems.

Arrow Alpha’s team are thinkers, designers, problem solvers and inventors, always on the lookout for opportunities to create and manufacture innovative products for a sustainable tomorrow.

Arrow Alpha’s product designs and manufacturing process reflect our passion for the environment. Every step in the manufacturing process is as clean, green and sustainable as possible keeping our environmental impact to an absolute minimum.

By focusing on improving the eco-efficiency of manufacturing systems to reduce energy, water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, production costs are also reduced, resulting in a WIN-WIN solution for clients and the ENVIRONMENT.